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Vegetarian & Vegan Diet

It’s a fact: Eating plants is very, very good for you and if you eat a lot of them, you can reap the rewards of scientiﬁcally proven beneﬁts, which include improved health, lower disease risk, weight loss, and longevity. Find out what your meals would include, if you ate a vegetarian or a vegan diet – and what these terms mean.

Many diﬀerent cultures around the world, especially in Latin America, the Mediterranean, Africa, India, Japan, and China rely on vegetables, fruits, nuts, seeds, whole grains, legumes, herbs, and spices to bring great ﬂavors, colors, and sound nutrition to their daily meals. Health professionals encourage everyone to boost consumption of these delicious plant-based foods, and there are a lot of ways to go about doing that.

Here’s a quick look at several popular, healthful diets that all focus on increasing the amount of plant foods you eat every day. Which plant-based diet is right for you?

Semi-Vegetarian or Flexitarian Includes dairy foods, eggs, and small amounts of meat, poultry, ﬁsh, and seafood.

Pescatarian Includes dairy foods, eggs, ﬁsh and seafood, but no meat or poultry.

Vegetarian (also known as Lacto-Ovo Vegetarian) Includes dairy foods and eggs, but no meat, poultry, ﬁsh, or seafood.

Vegan Includes no animal foods.

10 Small Steps to Healthier Plant-Based Meals

Are you looking for ways to get more vegetables and other plant foods into your diet? Set small, manageable goals for yourself and ease into a healthier way of eating.

Build your breakfasts around oatmeal, whole grain cereal, or a slice of whole grain bread spread with guacamole or nut butter. Include some fresh fruit, too.

Make a vegetarian meal one night a week. Include beans, whole grains, vegetables, herbs, and spices in a simple sauté or stew. Then try two nights a week, then three…

Fill at least half of your dinner plate with salad greens and cooked or raw vegetables.

Reach for healthy fats: Include small amounts of nuts, peanuts, nut butters, seeds, olives, avocados, and olive oil or other plant oils in your daily meals.

Our 4-Week Vegetarian/Vegan Menu Plan

Our “Veg 101” Brochure: Welcome to the Vegetarian and Vegan Diet

If you’re new to a Vegetarian or Vegan Diet, we have the overview that will bring you up to speed quickly. This trifold brochure, available either as a downloadable PDF or in hard copy, includes the 10 simple steps above, plus more – to introduce you to Vegetarian and Vegan Diets.

Vegetarian Diets for Good Health

Around the world and throughout the centuries many – if not most – societies have relied heavily on plant foods, with small amounts of animal protein. While these diets grew out of a mix of available foods and cultural patterns, today many people choose a vegetarian diet for its proven health beneﬁts.

Research shows that people following a vegetarian diet (plant foods plus eggs and dairy) or a vegan diet (plants food with no animal products) enjoy many of the following health beneﬁts:

Lower blood pressure

Reduced risk for coronary heart disease

Decreased risk of colon and breast cancers

Lower cholesterol

Less risk of diabetes

Oldways’ Vegetarian & Vegan Diet Pyramid illustrates a healthy model of vegetarian eating, incorporating foods from many traditional diets around the world. Check out our Health Studies page to learn more about the health beneﬁts of a vegetarian diet.

A plant-based diet can be an excellent source of all the necessary nutrients (protein, fats, carbohydrates, vitamins, minerals, and all nine essential amino acids) for optimal health, particularly when a wide variety of foods are eaten each day. Some vegetarians (especially vegans) may need to add supplements (such as B12) to ensure that they are getting all the essential nutrients they require.

Agricultural sustainability is a positive aspect of vegetarian diets. The industrial food production system, heavily focused on meat production (beef, pork, sheep, and poultry, etc.), is not sustainable. Plant crops (including grains, beans, vegetables) require fewer natural resources such as fuel, water, and land area than do livestock and poultry, making them more sustainable.

Oldways’ Development of the Vegetarian & Vegan Diet Pyramid

The original Vegetarian Diet Pyramid, the fourth traditional diet pyramid released by Oldways, was presented at the 1997 International Conference on Vegetarian Diets held in Austin, Texas. In October 2013, Oldways introduced a new version of the pyramid, which for the ﬁrst time includes vegan guidelines